The lounge of the Olds Curling Club was absolutely packed Thursday, Sept. 5 as ticket sales were officially launched for the final 2020 Humpty’s Champions Cup, part of Pinty's Grand Slam of Curling.
That event, which features 24 of the top men's and women's curling teams in the world, takes place April 29 – May 3 at the Olds Curling Club.
In order to qualify for it, 12 of the top men’s teams and 12 of the top women’s teams from around the world will have to win extremely tough world-class tournaments.
Sportsnet will broadcast the entire event with online streaming available via Sportsnet NOW.
To get tickets, fans are told to click on the link at grandslamofcurling.com.
"Individual tickets, if they are still available, will go on sale November 8," said Nancy McInerney, who is co-chairing the event along with Gary Gaudette. "We are anticipating that that might not happen if we sell out our packages."
The Grand Slam of Curling is the brainchild of retired curler Kevin Martin of Edmonton, an Olympic, world and four-time Canadian champion.
He was blown away by the size of the crowd, which he estimated to be about 300.
"You go to do a press conference, there's usually six people ... present," he said, sparking laughter. "Not in Olds. Wow, I guess this is kind of what's going to come. Absolutely fantastic."
Martin stressed the calibre of competitors will be extremely high because they have to qualify by winning top-notch tournaments. That includes tournaments across the world.
"It's the only way to get in. You have to win; can't come in second (in) a big event, doesn't do it, so we're not going to know until some time in nearly to mid March the field. And I think that is fantastic," he told reporters. "You know, it's just going to be an incredibly tough field. But who? Don't know. I love it."
Martin said judging by the size of the crowd that attended the ticket launch and the extremely high quality of competition, tickets for the event will go fast.
He warned the crowd that a similar event in St. John's sold out before local people could even get tickets.
Martin later told reporters that about 40 tickets were sold during the first speech given during Thursday's event. He estimated only about 1,100 tickets will be available. As of Friday, Sept. 6, 15 per cent of available tickets had been sold.
He said another reason that tickets will go so fast is that Olds — and Alberta — are in the middle of "curling country" and the nearest other grand slam will be in Yorkton. So he expects curling fans to drive here from across the province to see the event.
Speakers included Chelsea Carey, whose teams won the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in 2019 and 2016. Her team also won the 2018 Canadian open championship.
Carey agreed the grand slam competition will be daunting.
"Obviously we hope we're going to be here but it's a hard road to get here," she told reporters. "It's such a great event, so fingers crossed that we manage to qualify and that we get to come out back here in April."
Mayor Mike Muzychka praised the event and the crowd.
"Every time that I stand up here and I don't think that I can be more proud of the town that I grew up in and the town that I'm now mayor of, I come to an event like this and I see standing room only, and all the residents that are here to support this and know you're going to support it throughout start to finish," he said.
Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills MLA Nathan Cooper said the grand slam will provide Olds with great international exposure as well as spur the local and provincial economy.
"There's going to be over 1.5 million viewers who see our event here in the community of Olds," Cooper said.
"Literally hundreds and thousands of dollars of economic input and spinoff to our local region and millions of dollars across the province that will be injected into our economy at a time where we all know that it's been a tough few years.
"So I'm just so excited about this event, so excited about the work that's being done by community members to make it happen."
Cooper also alluded to Maclean’s Best Communities in Canada 2019, which ranked Mountain View County last among 415 Statistics Canada census subdivisions across the country, based on 10 categories.
"I'm just really hoping that someone has sent Maclean's magazine a set of tickets so that they can come see that we actually are the best place to live, work and raise a family in this entire country," he said, sparking laughter and applause.
